and defend our house?  His head becomes round and monstrous, in order that his jaws may be more powerful, more formidable and more tenacious.  Are we taking him to the south?  His hair grows shorter and lighter, so that he may faithfully accompany us under the rays of a hotter sun.  Are we going up to the north?  His feet grow larger, the better to tread the snow; his fur thickens, in order that the cold may not compel him to abandon us.  Is he intended only for us to play with, to amuse the leisure of our eyes, to adorn or enliven the home?  He clothes himself in a sovereign grace and elegance, he makes himself smaller than a doll to sleep on our knees by the fireside, or even consents, should our fancy demand it, to appear a little ridiculous to please us.

You shall not find, in nature’s immense crucible, a single living being that has shown a like suppleness, a similar abundance of forms, the same prodigious faculty of accommodation to our wishes.  This is because, in the world which we know, among the different and primitive geniuses that preside over the evolution of the several species, there exists not one, excepting that of the dog, that ever gave a thought to the presence of man.

It will, perhaps, be said that we have been able to transform almost as profoundly some of our domestic animals:  our hens, our pigeons, our ducks, our cats, our horses, our rabbits, for instance.  Yes, perhaps; although such transformations are not comparable with those undergone by the dog and although the kind of service which these animals render us remains, so to speak, invariable.  In any case, whether this impression be purely imaginary or correspond with a reality, it does not appear that we feel in these transformations the same unfailing and preventing good will, the same sagacious and exclusive love.  For the rest, it is quite possible that the dog, or rather the inaccessible genius of his race, troubles scarcely at all about us and that we have merely known how to make use of various aptitudes offered by the abundant chances of life.  It matters not:  as we know nothing of the substance of things, we must needs cling to appearances; and it is sweet to establish that, at least in appearance, there is on the planet where, like unacknowledged kings, we live in solitary state, a being that loves us.

However the case may stand with these appearances, it is none the less certain that, in the aggregate of intelligent creatures that have rights, duties, a mission and a destiny, the dog is a really privileged animal.  He occupies in this world a pre-eminent position enviable among all.  He is the only living being that has found and recognizes an indubitable, tangible, unexceptionable and definite god.  He knows to what to devote the best part of himself.  He knows to whom above him to give himself.  He has not to seek for a perfect, superior and infinite power in the darkness, amid successive lies, hypotheses and dreams.  That power is there, before him, and he moves in its light.  He knows the supreme duties which we all do not know.  He has a morality which surpasses all that he is able to discover in himself and which he can practise without scruple and without fear.  He possesses truth in its fulness.  He has a certain and infinite ideal.